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You are hereNadia Naffe: Part I: My Time as an Accomplice to Convicted Criminal James O’keefe

Nadia Naffe: Part I: My Time as an Accomplice to Convicted Criminal James O’keefe

By FZ - Posted on 16 March 2012

-By Nadia Naffe

March 14, 2012- I thought I could put the weekend of October 2nd, 2011 behind me. But it seems to keep popping up every time I look over my shoulder. The public is looking to me to connect the dots about what actually happened that evening which led me to file a criminal harassment complaint against James O’keefe in court.

As traumatic as this whole ordeal has been, it is indeed overshadowed by the sudden death of Andrew Breitbart, someone I once considered a dear friend. I suspect the discussion on Twitter was bound to occur at some point, given Breitbart’s fiery accusations against the Occupy Movement and his allegations of wide-spread sexual assaults. A parallel had been drawn between what happened to me at James O’keefe’s barn in New Jersey and Breitbart’s characterization about the treatment of women in the Occupy Movement. Breitbart’s detractors would claim his statements appeared disingenuous, hypocritical — and they were right. In the three days leading up to Breitbart’s death, the discussion on Twitter became all about me. I finally had to respond.

I remember the first time I met Andrew Breitbart. It was January 2010. James had flown me out to Los Angeles to join him on an undercover project. He was extremely secretive about the scope of the project and kept the details about who the target was very close to his chest. James insisted the target of his investigation was a corrupt politician and that it was imperative that this person be taken down. James sounded so sincere and inspiring. For the first time in my life, I felt as if a normal citizen, a former political hack no less, really could change the world. But before I boarded the plane, I received an odd email from James. The subject of the email was, “bribery evidence – exception to wiretapping statute in CA”. The email read, “Congressional Offices/Banks – criminal Exception – 630.5 – Statutes don’t apply for containing evidence reasonably believed to related to extortion, kidnapping, bribery, violence against the person.”

When I landed at LAX I learned that the target was Congresswoman Maxine Waters, her husband Sydney and OneUnited; the bank where Waters’ husband once served as chairman of the board and remains a major shareholder. As we sat in the parking lot at the banks headquarters, James phoned Breitbart to update him on his success. James bragged about how easy it was to get inside the banks, there were no security guards and he was able to completely disarm the banks employees by bringing me along. This was the first time I had ever spoken to Andrew Breitbart. I’ll never forget what he said. He told me I was a patriot and that what we were doing was advancing freedom.